TikTok Ads Manager offers powerful tools to create, optimise, and track advertising campaigns on one of the world’s fastest-growing platforms. If you’re looking to promote your brand or business on social media, TikTok is a platform that you can’t afford to ignore.
- TikTok boasts over 1.1 billion active users, making it a goldmine for brands aiming to target Gen Z and Millennial audiences.
- 90% of TikTok users open the app multiple times daily, providing unmatched opportunities for high-frequency ad exposure.
Types of TikTok Ads
Like many other social media platforms, TikTok offers a range of different ad types for you to experiment with. These include In-Feed Ads, Branded Hashtag Challenges, TopView Ads, Branded Effects, and Spark Ads.
Below, you can see a breakdown of all five ad types to see how they work, and the best uses for each – depending on the needs of your campaign and overall goals.
Bonus: If you want to start selling products on TikTok Shop, be sure to read our in-depth guide to that here.
In-Feed Ads
- Appears within the user’s For You feed, blending seamlessly with organic content.
- Best for: Driving traffic, app installs, or conversions.
- Cost: £0.20–£0.50 CPC on average.
Branded Hashtag Challenges
- Encourages user-generated content (UGC) around a specific hashtag.
- Best for: Increasing brand engagement and awareness.
- Average Cost: £100,000+ for a 6-day campaign.
TopView Ads
- The first ad users see when opening TikTok.
- Best for: Maximum visibility and brand awareness.
- Cost: £50,000+ per day, depending on reach.
Branded Effects
- Custom filters and effects users can interact with.
- Best for: Driving engagement and creating viral moments.
- Cost: £80,000–£120,000 per campaign.
Spark Ads
- Boosts existing organic content from your account or user-generated posts.
- Best for: Building credibility and reusing viral content.
- Cost: Performance-based with no minimum spend.
Please note that estimated costs were sourced from both the Influencer Marketing Hub and Hootsuite – and at the time of writing were accurate.
Setting Up Your Campaign in TikTok Ads Manager
When it comes to actually setting up your TikTok ads, there are a few steps you need to follow before you can do anything. Below, you can see a step-by-step guide to getting up and running with TikTok Ads Manager.
Create an Account
- Visit TikTok Ads Manager and set up your account.
- Choose a business or personal account based on your needs.
Define Your Objective
- Choose from goals like Reach, Traffic, App Installs, or Conversions.
- Example: A brand focused on sales might select Conversions as the objective.
Set Your Budget
- Campaign-level or daily budgets are available.
- Minimum budget: £20/day for campaigns, £5/day for ad groups.
Target Your Audience
- Options include age, gender, location, interests, behaviours, and even custom audiences.
- Use TikTok’s Lookalike Audiences to reach users similar to your best customers.
Design Your Ad
- Use TikTok’s Video Creation Kit for easy, professional content creation.
- Focus on short, dynamic videos (15–60 seconds) with engaging captions and trending sounds.
Launch and Optimise
- Review TikTok’s recommendations for optimal placement.
- Once live, monitor performance via TikTok Ads Manager’s analytics dashboard.
Best Practices for TikTok Ads Manager
If you’ve ever worked with social media, you’ll know that setting things up and getting your ads running is just the start of the process. To really make the most of this amazing advertising tool, you have to be following the best practices.
Below, you can see some of the essential best practices for TikTok Ads Manager that you NEED to be following with your own ads.
- Follow Trends: Incorporate trending sounds, effects, and hashtags to improve visibility.
- Create Native-Looking Content: Ads that feel like organic TikTok videos perform better.
- Keep it Short: Videos under 20 seconds have the highest engagement rates.
- Add a Clear Call to Action (CTA): Encourage viewers to take action (e.g., “Shop Now,” “Learn More”).
Measuring Success with TikTok Ads Manager
Once you’ve created your ads and followed all the best practices for TikTok Ads Manager, you need to be constantly measuring success to ensure your ads are on track to achieve your goals and objectives.
The good news is that TikTok Ads Manager provides robust analytics to track campaign performance. When looking at this data (which you should be doing on a weekly basis at the very least), the key metrics to monitor are…
Metric | Function |
Impressions | How often your ad is seen in the feed of TikTok users. This doesn’t include how many times it was interacted with. |
Click-Through Rate (CTR) | How many times people have clicked on your ad and visited your target page. An ideal CTR is 1-2% for most campaigns. |
Engagement Rate | The number of likes, shares, and comments your ad has received. This is less important for ads, but will give you an idea of how well your ad is being received by TikTok users. |
Conversion Rate | Tracks successful actions like purchases or downloads. This is typically the most important metric, as it lets you see how much return you’re getting from your ads budget. |
Pro Tip: Use TikTok’s Automated Creative Optimisation to test and adapt your ads in real-time for better performance.
If you found this guide helpful, and want to know more about advertising on social media, be sure to check out our YouTube advertising infographic here.
The Full TikTok Ads Manager Infographic
Grab all the full guide in the stunning infographic below!
This infographic was created using Facebook demographic statistics from DataReportal and Statista.
